This from one Rick Bayco, founder and proprietor of Yankee Runner in Newburyport, MA, responding to the piece on running shoes from yesteryear that ran a while back.

No problem, Rick. The party never stops around here.

Some that I'd add would be Onitsuka Tiger Roadrunner, Marathon, and Cub, circa late 1960s.

Whoa, that goes waaaay back. When you start throwing around the name Onitsuka, the guy who in 1949 founded the company we now know as ASICS, we’re very deep in heritage territory.

Blue Ribbon Sports distributed these Japanese beauties in the U.S. and sold them for about seven or eight dollars, undercutting New Balance's ripple-soled shoes at 14 dollars.

Clever fellow, that founder of Blue Ribbon Sports, a young entrepreneur fresh out of the University of Oregon by the name of Phil Knight. As I recall, he had a falling out with Onitsuka and ended up starting his own company. Give me a minute, it’ll come to me.

Also on Rick’s list was one of the first trainers with a nylon upper, the Tiger Marathon in the early 70s. At first, he thought this Onitsuka bunch was just trying to save by skimping on quality—But a few runs in them won a person over with the improved breathability.

Leather uppers on running shoes have been history ever since.

Some of my personal favorites over the years have included the Avia Meridian, Brooks Trilogy, and Saucony Dixon.

Another old ShoeGuy who over-pronates. That Meridian was a very comfortable lightweight stability trainer and the Trilogy was one of Brooks’ Kinetic Wedge shoes, an early effort to control pronation through the management of windlass mechanics.

And the Saucony Dixon, named in honor of the great Rod Dixon around the time he delivered one of the most dramatic wins in New York City Marathon history, was also a pioneer stability shoe.

The little "Dutchman" piece between the upper and midsole was another surprisingly effective anti-pronation device.

Yep, that sliver of plastic was similar to a number of such devices, from the old Etonic Dynamic Reaction Plate to today’s Mizuno Wave. Plastic with varying degrees of rigidity engineered inside soft foam can help manage the gait pattern.

The only racing flat on Rick’s list was the Nike Elite.

It was lightweight for its time, a waffle-soled racer at a reasonable price.

Another winner from that Blue Ribbon Sports outfit that by then had morphed into Nike.

While we’re on the subject of Nike in the early 80s, Rick, what about the Nike Yankee? Seems like the name alone would get it a hallowed pillow in the Newburyport Running Shoe Hall of Fame.

But, no. Disappointment was the euphemism Rick used to describe what happened with the Nike Yankee, a light, flexible, and well-cushioned trainer that was a predecessor to today’s Pegasus.

It seems that Newburyport, a village rich in American history nestled on the Massachusetts coast less than an hour north of Boston, was one of several shoe manufacturing towns scattered throughout New England. Then in the 1960s, the factories started closing, one by one, as shoe building moved overseas.

Needless to say, Newburyporters had a sour taste for shoes from Asia. So along comes the Nike Yankee, made in Korea! Sacrilege! Adding insult to injury was the realization that Nike was still making shoes in New Hampshire and Maine, yet they imported the shoe that bore our name from Korea!

I guess we can forget about that hallowed pillow. Lucky for Nike, the Greeks aren’t nearly as proprietary about the Pegasus name.

Ever the New England gentleman, Rick summed it up with very carefully chosen words: The Yankee was not as well received here as it was elsewhere.

It’s probably coincidental that the history of the modern running shoe parallels the emigration of most U.S. shoe manufacturing to Asia over the last few decades. The lure of lower labor costs started it all, but many Asian factory owners have done a heck of a job building what is now a very sophisticated industry. While the running shoes coming out of Asia today are better than ever, it’s worth noting that their roots are deep in New England towns like Newburyport, Sacco, Bangor, Lawrence, and Exeter.

I still get customers, old-timers mostly, asking if any of the shoes I sell are made in America. Fortunately, a few New Balance models qualify.

True. With the closing of the last Saucony factory in Maine a few years ago, New Balance is the singular holdout in assembling running shoes on these shores. My guess is it’s the favored brand of a good number of Newburyport’s citizens, including those now living in condos converted from former shoe factories, who commute to Boston to work.

We can appreciate how far we’ve come only if we occasionally visit where we’ve been. So, Rick, thanks for the history lesson. The one about shoes, too.